A Slightly Different Version
by FlitShadowflame
Summary: nothing too bad in it yet, future Romy. Hard to summarize. Very AU. This is on permanent hiatus, because I've lost inspiration for this fic in a major way, but if anyone wants to adopt it, send me a PM.
1. Introductions

This is an AU fic. There are still mutants, but some "details" are different. For one, Rogue still goes by Marie, at least in this chapter. Irene does not exist, because I only saw a tiny part of one of the episodes with her in it. Marie and Kurt are actually half-siblings, Kurt by Mystique (Raven) and whoever-his-dad-is in Germany, where he lived until he was somewhere between eight and ten, and Marie by Raven and whoever-I- decide-her-dad-will-be. They've been moving around, per Magneto's orders, and have met his children, though Pietro and Wanda are not appearing for a while.  
  
As for Remy, his story is largely unchanged, except for the fact that he's actually in school. And I'm unsure whether or not I'll make him a smoker. Oh, and I have no clue what Lapin's real name is, and since Lapin means either "rabbit" or "bunny" in French, I'm reckoning that isn't it. Tell me if you know. Lapin will be a year younger than Remy, because I said so. Kurt is technically two years younger than Marie – depending on the month, 'cause he has birthdays too an' all – but is only one GRADE younger. Ok? Ok.  
  
***  
  
Marie Juliette Darkholme groaned irritably. Her half-brother, Kurt Darkholme, was knocking lightly on her door, demonstrating once again his shyness.  
  
"Ah'm comin' little bro," she murmured as loudly as she could get her throat to work.  
  
"Marie, muzzer is vaiting impatiently. Have you packed?"  
  
"Yes, yes."  
  
"Marie."  
  
She sighed. "Nein."  
  
"Schweister . . . muzzer will be so angry."  
  
Marie sat up in her bed, and crawled her way to the small pile of unpacked clothes at a snail's pace. "Ah know, Kurt." She dressed and opened the door to reveal her largely empty room to her brother.  
  
"Vake up, schweister," her brother grinned toothily, displaying his fangs. He patted her cheek with a furry, two-fingered hand. "Ve're leaving in thirty minutes, breakfast is –" he checked is watch. "Now."  
  
Sister followed brother to the kitchen. 'Why New Orleans? Why the middle of the year? Why the middle of the freaking week no less?' She ate the two pop tarts without complaint, knowing her mother was a terrible cook.  
  
Raven Darkholme looked at her children sadly. Erik was forcing the family to move again. She despised moving. She understood the necessity, however. The children's mutations were still developing, however. Little fourteen year old Marie, and twelve year old Kurt – they were so young. She regretted even more putting Kurt up for adoption, no matter how brief the time he spent in the circus. But no one could see her sadness, her despair. Her job revolved around her stoic, impersonal nature. Her life and the lives of her children hung on that job, the support Erik gave them.  
  
"Momma?"  
  
"Yes, Marie?"  
  
"Why do we have to go again? So soon? It's only been two months since we got HERE."  
  
"You know Uncle Erik. We have to do what he says if you want to live in nice places, if you want your future to be assured."  
  
"I know, Momma . . . but it's hard enough for us to make friends, even with that invention of Uncle's for Kurt."  
  
"Be patient, my child."  
  
///New Orleans, one day later///  
  
(The following conversation is entirely in German, which is why there are no accents.)  
  
"It's loud and smelly and dirty," Kurt grumbled. Though not a complainer, he was very stressed over the last move. His sister gave him a bemused smile from the seat beside his. "I can't believe it. Only you, mother, would make us go to school on the first day," he continued.  
  
"Be grateful I didn't make you attend the second half of yesterday's education," the woman grinned ferally. Her form today was an adult version of Marie with darker hair and higher cheekbones.  
  
"Yeah, Kurt, it can always be worse," Marie laughed in her brother's native tongue.  
  
Kurt pouted, turning on his image-inducer.  
  
"We're here," Raven told her offspring. "Do you want me to help you two register?"  
  
"We ARE in middle school, mother. I can handle it," assured Marie.  
  
"See you in a few hours, kids." They left the car, Kurt following his big sister like a lost puppy.  
  
(And now we're going back to English again)  
  
Marie scanned the crowd and found a promising subject. "Hey there, mah brother an' Ah're new. Where's the office, sugah?"  
  
The boy whistled sharply. "J'mappelle Lapin, but you can call me anythin' you like, chere. Follow moi," he smirked, leading the duo to the office, not even noticing her gloves. He was far too caught up in her eyes.  
  
"'ey, Lapin!" a voice called out. "Mm . . . who is la belle fille?"  
  
"Remy, not now!" Lapin whined to the older boy.  
  
"Excuse me. Lapin, was it? Well, Lapin, Ah can see th' office from here. How 'bout y'all go on ta class n' me n' Kurt go registah, hm? Au revoir, boys."  
  
"Ah, merde," the boys muttered, heading to their lockers.  
  
"Pardon moi, madame? My brother and I need to register."  
  
"Ah, Marie and Kurt Darkholme. Here are your schedules, school maps, etc. You'll get your books next Monday, hopefully. Have fun, you two!"  
  
"Doubtful," Marie muttered when they left the office. "Looks lahke our firs' classes are rahght nex' to each othah. Look! We even have lunch an' Gym t'gethah."  
  
"Dat is good," Kurt said, his tail fidgeting around his waist. He let her lead to their homerooms. They split up, Marie to Mrs. Green and Kurt to Mr. Hall.  
  
"Until lunch, mon frére." She entered the classroom to find everyone staring at her. She went and spoke with the teacher.  
  
"You must be Marie. We're glad to have you here . . . I'm afraid the only empty seat is next to . . . LeBeau." She saw the teacher wince. "Try not to let him talk to you, the boy's a menace," Mrs. Green whispered. "With the devil's eyes," she added, placing her hand on her face so that the V- position of her fingers pointed to her own blue eyes.  
  
"Ah'd lahke to take mah seat, Mrs. Green, so if ya don't mind quittin' yer gossip, Ah'm ahfraid it's against mah religion ta talk be'ind someone's back," Marie protested loudly, turning on her heel to face the class. At first there was laughter Marie's snappish put-down of the unpopular teacher. Then there were murmurs and gasps when they saw her two-colored hair, and the boys gulped, attempting to close their gaping mouths.  
  
"Remy, raise your hand!" the teacher barked, embarrassed by her students' reaction to this new girl's remark.  
  
"Over here, chere," a vaguely familiar voice called out from a corner of the room.  
  
Remy LeBeau was the boy who had spoken with Lapin. He had his short brown hair in a messy, just-woke-up bowl cut. He still wore the dark sunglasses and trench coat, even inside the dark, warm classroom. The empty seat was between him and the wall, with a blonde in front and another wall behind it.  
  
Marie moved to her new seat, taking the note Remy had scrawled as she walked the aisle.  
  
'Who was the witch gossiping about?'  
  
"You," she whispered to him when the teacher looked away.  
  
With that, the bell rang. Remy and Marie walked out of homeroom and to their next class – which was conveniently the same. Remy asked to see her schedule, only to reach the startling discovery that ALL their classes were the same.  
  
"Guess Ah'd better get used to you, Swamp Rat," Marie grinned, following him to Mr. Sweeney's class.  
  
"The homme's name is total shit, but he's the best teacher I've ever had," murmured Remy as they entered the room. "Really makes history come alive."  
  
"You must be Marie. 'm afraid we've run out of seats NOT by Remy, so take your pick and attempt not to engage in conversation with you, as you WILL get in trouble and so will he, isn't that right, LeBeau?"  
  
Remy gave the man a grin, which was returned with a long-suffering sigh. Remy sat in the middle of the room, but it might as well have been an island, he was so isolated.  
  
"Why're you the one-man country?" Marie inquired, taking the seat on his right.  
  
"I talk too much here, since I know so much history now. I read the entire book one day, and then I read it again another, and again, and again. I love history, but I know everything the man teaches, this is all detail stuff. Everyone's been moved away because I get them in trouble and they frequently fail tests, miss homework assignments, screw up their class work . . ." he trailed off, noting the fact that Marie had noticed that all the girls were outside the ring of boys surrounding Remy. "I talk to girls most, d'accord?" he frowned.  
  
Marie just laughed. "You an' me're gonna do fine, LeBeau."  
  
***  
  
I think that's good for the first chapter. They're friends already! *gushes*  
  
Awww, aren't they cute?! 


	2. Explanations

Chapter two!!!! Ok, that was a lot more exclamation points than I ever want to use at the end of one sentence again.  
  
Oh, I almost forgot, I have no idea what Louisiana middle school days are like. At my middle school, we had homeroom and second period in the same place, but we'll pretend it's different there, even if it isn't.

[X-x-X-x-X]

After History was Writing and Grammar with Miss Kay. After W.G. was French, a language Marie already half-knew, and most of the class was either native or natively fluent in, Remy being native.  
  
Suddenly paranoid for her brother, she went up to the teacher. "Mah brother's a seventh grader, ma'am. Does he take language?"  
  
"Seventh graders have French also."  
  
Marie sighed unhappily, returning to her seat – by Remy, as it was in all her classes so far.  
  
"What is it, petite chere?"  
  
"Mah li'l brother's still strugglin' with English. Addin' ANOTHER language . . ." she trailed off with another sigh.  
  
"Quoi?"  
  
"Mah HALF-brother was born n' raised in Germany. Ah've been learnin' his language since Ah was six, but he's only been workin' on his English for a few years."  
  
"You know German?"  
  
"Ja," was all he caught. "Native fluency," she remarked in English. "Ah've been workin' on Français for two 're three years, not nearly as long."  
  
"How good are you?"  
  
"Tres magnifique, if I do say so myself, Monsieur LeBeau, but far from perfect."  
  
Remy gave her a calculating look. "You're an incredible fille, cheré."  
  
She merely grinned.  
  
Lunch  
  
Lunch was largely uneventful. Kurt and Lapin and some other relatives and friends of the LeBeau boys sat with the eighth grade duo, along with several simpering girls gazing wistfully at the tall, dark, and handsome Cajun and drooling guys ogling Marie and avoiding Kurt as best they could.  
  
On a completely different subject, Kurt and Lapin, it appeared, also had all the same classes.  
  
"So we LeBeaus're tuggin' 'round you Darkholmes?" murmured Lapin. "I dunno, sounds odd to me. This school has so many classes; the likelihood of this is small, about ten, maybe twenty to one by estimate."  
  
"Shut yer trap, Lapin, jus' be happy de way t'ings are," Remy rolled his eyes.  
  
"Actually," Kurt fidgeted slightly, "I t'ink zis vas our muzzer's doink."  
  
"Quoi?" the LeBeaus inquired in unison, mouths open.  
  
Kurt sighed. He grabbed Lapin's arm and yanked up the sleeve, displaying the other boy's Thief Guild tattoo. "You two are in de T'ieves Guild, ja? Haven't you heard dat a t'ief for 'ire is comink in, a specialist in disguise?"  
  
"Oui," Remy said, just as Lapin declined. "Remember, little cousin, Remy's much higher up den you."  
  
"Oui, you little Prince of T'ieves," growled the younger of the two.  
  
"You're Jean-Luc's son," gasped Marie quietly. There was a nod. "Ah thought the name was familiah. Mahght's well tell 'em 'bout momma, Kurt."  
  
"Our muzzer is Raven Darkholme, de chameleon, de mistress of disguise."  
  
"Ah . . . Remy's heard of her. She n' ma pére are pullin' off a heist t'gedder."  
  
"Yeah, but that's not everythin'. Momma's joinin' th' Thieves' Guild."  
  
Remy and Lapin gaped.  
  
"But – dat's so rare it's unheard of!"  
  
"What?"  
  
"An outsider – joinin' one a' de Guilds! Dey're bot' fam'ly owned, an' fam'ly kep'," Lapin protested.  
  
"Both? Who's th' othah Guild?"  
  
Remy's voice was lowered even further. "Y've nev'r heard of de Assassins? Jus' as we are t'ieves for 'ire, dey are killers for pay. But de similarities end at management – the Boudreaux (is that the head family? I honestly have no idea.) clan is de mos' rut'less in de city, an' dat's sayin' somet'in'. At least we t'ieves, we LeBeaus, 'ave honor, we don't waste lives, we don't torture and rape. But dey 'ave no mercy, no honor at all. Deir children are just as rut'less, just as soulless as de adults."  
  
"You've had a lot a' tahme ta think about this, haven't ya?"  
  
"Oui, chere. Remy's been a t'ief in dis Guild since Remy was nine, an' Remy's known about de rivalry since Remy was four," said the Cajun in third person, sincerely irritating Marie and confusing the hell out of Kurt.  
  
"Are we dat infamous?" Lapin turned to his cousin, confusing the half- siblings.  
  
"Oui, cher, even on de streets, we knew about de Assassins an' de T'ieves. Remy 'as always been a t'ief an' a t'ief's supporter. My maman was killed by de damn assassin fuckers," he growled, spitting out first person like it hurt him even more than the sentence.  
  
"What – I don' undahstand. You were on th' streets?"  
  
"Remy was an orphan on de streets since four, yes. Tried to pick Jean Luc's pocket when Remy was nine, nearly got his arm broken . . . Jean Luc took Remy in, adopted him as a second son, taught 'im 'ow to burgle, 'ow to TRULY steal," the eighth grader said, sighing happily when he thought of his father. "But Remy goin' on an' on 'bout 'imself, what's yer life like, chere?"  
  
"Mah father abandoned mah mother, who put me in th' care of a friend a' hers' nanny, despicable woman, that damn nanny. She went ta Germany on a mission, had Kurt there an' left 'im with another friend. She came back, raised me for a few months, had another mission, went an' raised Kurt for a few months – her job requires a lot a' movement, a lot a' flexibility, an' a lot a' disguises. Fahnally, Kurt was old enough ta come to America, an' live with me an' Momma. We still moved aroun' a lot, but since Kurt an' Ah could be trusted to lie to anyone who needed lyin' to, we weren't a "liahbility" anymawh," she air-quoted disdainfully. "Her boss's words – not hers." She sighed. "Momma would do anythin' for that man an' his "cause,"" she air-quoted again.  
  
The four of them fell into a depressed silence, quietly contemplating their shit-worthy home-lives. Then the bell rang.

[X-x-X-x-X]

Wow that sucked. I'm sorry, but right now I'm in a love-hate relationship with volume three of Gravitation. I love it and hate it at the same time, and I'm halfway through reading it – since I read as many pages as I can stomach between paragraphs.  
  
Also, it's my last night at my grandparents house, and I really wanted to crank this out since I don't have any discs with me sweatdrops so I could post it right here and now. Except, I'll have to wait thirty minutes because it's 8:30 and I'm not allowed to get on the internet (damn dial-up old fashioned grandparents – at least they have this lovely Dell) until 9:00. So. I'll post it then. You'll be happy. Aiie, and I need to get cracking on a new chappie for my Toad story. Yeah right. That'll be up in MONTHS. Is being pessimistic. Really though, I'll try. But Gravitation is killing my soul. Fingers itch to return to the adventures of Shuichi Shindou.  
  
Damn. Well, see ya.  
  
--Chroni


End file.
